


Office Party (Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum)

by novelized



Category: Neighbors (2014)
Genre: Bromance to Romance, Christmas Party, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2793845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novelized/pseuds/novelized
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete drags Teddy to his office Christmas party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Office Party (Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kissoffools](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissoffools/gifts).



Pete’s quiet the entire drive over, but, like, weird-quiet, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel and checking the rearview mirror way too many times. Teddy would think he was blazed if they weren’t about to spend the next four hours at his office holiday party, sipping ritzy cocktails and rambling on about boring-ass architecture stuff, like blueprints or scale models or whatever the hell it is they do. 

And besides, he’d tried to make Pete take a hit or two before they’d left the apartment, but Pete refused. He wouldn’t even let _him_ do it. Like it mattered. Like he was going to embarrass him if he showed up to his work party high. People with real jobs could be such a fucking drag.

“Tell me again why I’m going to this,” Teddy says when he can’t take it anymore, can’t deal with the long stretches of heavy silence. He’d tried flipping through the radio but three of Pete’s preset stations are full of cheesy Christmas music and he is _not_ succumbing to that sober. He hates that fucking drummer boy. Who the hell plays the drums near a tiny newborn baby? Babies can’t even appreciate good drumming.

Pete only sneaks a glance at him and then it’s eyes right back on the road. “Because my boss told me to invite you,” he says, and he sounds nervous, maybe, but he’d been nervous about this party for a week straight now. Wouldn’t stop talking about it. Wouldn’t let Teddy get into the car until he’d ironed his pants—he didn’t even know they owned an iron—and promised he wouldn’t fool around with the office secretary or any of his coworkers’ wives. 

“Okay, and why did your boss tell you to invite me?”

“Because—” Pete gets that look on his face like when he’s about to say something he doesn’t really want to say. He used to do that all the time in college, shit like _hey, do you think you should maybe try showing up for your Psych final?_ or, more recently, _hey, do you think maybe you should try not laying on the couch and watching Jersey Shore reruns for five hours straight?_ He apparently changes his mind, though, because a second later he just shakes his head as he eases his car into the parking lot. “Because he just wanted to meet my roommate, I guess, man, I don’t know.” 

That seems pretty fucking weird to Teddy, if he’s being honest. His managers at Abercrombie didn’t care if he brought a plus-one to their Christmas party. There it was more like, oh, you’re single? Great, we’ll put mistletoe every three inches so you can make out with the other fifteen attractive single employees. He was hungover and hickey-ed for like three days straight.

On second thought, though, he probably should’ve brought Pete to his work party. Dude was high-strung all the time now. Dude definitely could’ve used at least a handie.

“Whatever,” Teddy says, flipping the sun visor down so he can stare at himself in the mirror. If sobriety wasn’t enough, Pete had forced him into a tie, too, and it’s practically cutting off his air supply. At least he looks good. “As long as there’s free alcohol.” 

“Yeah, man, tons. Just don’t—”

“Get drunk and take my clothes off, I know, _I know._ ” Teddy reaches over and pinches Pete’s cheek before he can slap his hand away. “It’s cute how much you care about this job, Pete. Really.”

They get out of the car and Teddy gets his first long look at the place: it’s not a huge office, but it’s super nice and overly decorated, all animatronic elves and bright lights and a gigantic Santa waving at them from the rooftop. Teddy thinks it’d be pretty hilarious to sneak one of the particularly animated elves up there and if he positioned them just right—but then he catches Pete’s eye and Pete totally knows exactly what he’s thinking, even gives him a look and says firmly, “Dude. No.”

They have been living together for far too long. If they were chicks they’d definitely be on the rag at the same time, however that worked. He thinks it maybe has something to do with the moon.

Pete holds the door open for him when they get up the sidewalk, and Teddy walks into pretty much exactly what he’d been expecting: a bunch of old white dudes and their arm-candy wives, guys in vests carrying around trays of fancy finger foods, and terrible jazz music flooding from the speaker systems. He has to hand it to them, though: there’s a bar set up in the middle of the room that is practically overflowing with booze. 

He makes a beeline straight for it.

By the time he gets up to the counter he realizes that Pete’s not there beside him, like he’d gotten lost in the crowd somewhere along the way, but that’s cool. He knows what Pete likes. He orders them both drinks, ignores the way the bartender’s eyes slide pointedly to the tip jar, and then does a little people watching. He can imagine the conversations happening around him pretty easily: retirement funds and vacation homes and whatever those goddamn democrats were up to these days. He tries to imagine Pete rattling on about 401k’s twenty years from now and hopes to God it never gets to that point. He’d beat sense into him before it got that bad.

Assuming they were still friends, anyway. Because they’d have to be. They’ve been through real life shit together. Teddy had forgiven Pete for committing the cardinal sin against bro-hood, back in college when he’d hooked up with Brooke, and if they could get through that, then they were pretty much solid. For life.

Teddy spots Pete across the room, finally, and he’s chatting to some old dude in a sweater vest, and laughing pretty hard at whatever the guy’s saying. It’s his fake laugh, one he’d used to get the frat out of tight spots on more than one occasion, but what’s more striking is that Pete looks… natural. Like he belongs there, wearing a skinny tie and stupid cuff links and laughing with this old geezer. And suddenly it’s not so hard to imagine Pete twenty years from now. And it’s not so hard to imagine him with a wife and kids and a big fancy house, and laughing at some unfunny joke at his big fancy architecture firm, except by then, he’s probably not faking it anymore.

Teddy tries to imagine himself twenty years from now, but all he can see is himself sleeping on Pete’s couch in a darkened basement and working in the back room at Abercrombie with all of the ugly employees who don’t even realize that they’re ugly. 

Jesus. He is so going to start studying harder for his night classes.

He lets out a short sigh and throws back half his drink before picking his way through the crowd and then sidling up next to Pete. He was totally right, the old dude is complaining about politics when he gets there, so he doesn’t even feel bad for interrupting, for nudging Pete in the shoulder and saying, “Hey. Got you this.”

Pete looks at him kind of anxiously, like Teddy’s presence isn’t exactly welcomed right now, but he takes the offered drink and forces a smile at him anyway. “Thanks,” he says, and pauses, bracing himself, before turning towards the old guy again. “Mr. Roberts, this is—this is Teddy. Teddy, Mr. Roberts. My boss.” He pauses, then adds, “Teddy was the president of our fraternity in college.”

Even when he sounds super fucking weird, there he goes, proudly talking him up. Pete is always doing that. Almost like he’s bragging for him.

Teddy doesn’t even have time to respond, because the old guy—the big boss man, whatever—makes it even weirder. His eyes widen and he grins a little brighter and then he’s shaking his hand so warmly that Pete might’ve just introduced him as Santa Claus. 

“I have _so_ been looking forward to meeting you,” Roberts says, so he’s either the friendliest man ever or a little deranged. Or both. “Pete’s told me so much about you.”

Teddy looks at Pete, who’s suddenly very interested in what’s inside his glass. “He has?”

Roberts laughs out loud at that, this big booming laugh. “Well, of course,” he says. “I’ll admit, when he first told me about you, I had my doubts. You’re both so young! No one knows what they want at that age. But meeting you now…” He winks all exaggeratedly and elbows Pete, and Pete laughs, but it’s the sort of laugh where he actually sounds like he’s dying, or, at least, that he wishes he were. “Well,” Roberts finishes, “let’s just say I can see why he’d want to lock things down.”

Teddy has no idea what he’s talking about. Lock things down? Because they were roommates? He likes their living situation, sure, but he doesn’t know if things are actually _locked down._ Hell, their landlord had threatened to evict them after the Thanksgiving Incident, and that was only three weeks ago. 

“Yeah,” Teddy says slowly, “I mean, things have worked out pretty well so far. Even if his dad doesn’t approve.”

It’s true. Pete’s dad was all about him getting serious, now that he had the serious job and the serious wardrobe and the serious diploma all nicely framed on the wall. Thought he should get a place by himself. In a retirement community, probably. He definitely didn’t approve of the parties. 

Roberts seems pretty taken aback by that, and he looks at Pete with concern written all over his face. “You never mentioned that,” he says, and Teddy hadn’t meant to drag the moment down, or anything, he’d mostly just been making idle conversation. But apparently that was the wrong thing to converse about because there is this super heavy tension in the air now.

Teddy’s as lost as ever.

“Well,” Pete says, shooting Teddy a warning look, except that he doesn’t know what he’s being warned about. “He’s still getting used to… everything, I guess. He’s coming around.”

Roberts nods solemnly and reaches out and claps Teddy on the shoulder. “Good thing you boys have each other, then,” he says, and Teddy lifts his glass to that, in agreement that sure, they’re pretty much the best bros ever, when Roberts finishes in this sly sort of way, “And, let me tell you, you are one of the best-looking couples I have ever seen.”

Teddy nearly chokes on an ice cube.

This is the part where Pete should correct him, and they’d laugh about how absurd that idea was, how in all their years of friendship no one’d ever made that mistake before, except Pete doesn’t. He doesn’t correct him, he doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t do anything except spill a little whiskey over the side of his cup, avoid eye contact with Teddy, and smile nervously at his boss. “Thanks, Mr. Roberts,” he says, and then, immediately after, “Hey, Teddy, your drink’s empty, we should get a refill—nice chatting with you, sir, I’m sure we’ll see you around.”

He grabs Teddy by the wrist and drags him off, not towards the bar, but across the room and straight into a dark supply closet out in the hall. 

“Dude,” Teddy says, first thing. He fumbles for the light switch, and then they’re blasted into terrible fluorescent lighting, which is the kind of lighting that he’d discovered he looks worst in, after a very serious series of experiments in college. And who said he didn’t study? “What the _hell._ ” 

“I’m sorry,” Pete answers in this frantic sort of whisper. “I meant to tell you, I swear to God, dude, I just didn’t want you to freak out.”

“Oh, you didn’t want me to freak out? Because it would be totally irrational to freak out? About you telling your boss that we’re fucking?!”

“I didn’t tell him we’re fucking,” Pete says quickly. “I didn’t tell him anything, man. He just…” He pauses, and then they both realize at the exact same time that his hand’s still wrapped tightly around Teddy’s wrist. He lets go like it’d scalded him. “He just... assumed.” 

“He just _assumed_ that we’re a couple? How did he even know about me?”

Pete looks super uncomfortable right now, which would be funny if he could stop picturing that little suggestive wink Roberts had shot him before they’d left. “I… have a picture,” Pete says, after a long stretch of silence. They may or may not be getting high on cleaning fumes. Teddy doesn’t really care.

“A picture?”

“Of us.”

“You have a picture of us?”

Pete wrinkles his forehead. “On my desk.”

“You have a picture—”

“Would you stop repeating me?” Pete interrupts, all exasperated, which is crazy because Teddy should be the exasperated one here. He should be, like, the king of exasperation. “Okay, yeah, I have a picture of us on my desk. All the other guys have pictures on their desk, and I don’t have a girlfriend or parents that are still together or even a dog, okay, I just have… you.”

Suddenly, Pete’s boss mistaking him for a gay dude doesn’t seem quite so out there. 

“Well…” Teddy says after a minute. “Is it a good picture, at least?”

“Are you kidding me? It’s a fantastic picture, dude, you look incredible in it.” 

Teddy nods. If he was Pete, he’d probably have pictures of himself on his desk too. Like, hey, look at all of the insanely attractive people I know. No sweat. “So why didn’t you just tell him you were straight, man? When he first made that assumption?”

“Because I didn’t know!” Pete’s all fidgety again. No wonder he’d near pissed his pants a dozen times in the week leading up to this party. “He, you know… he bonded with me. Over it. He didn’t even know my name before that, and then suddenly, he was at my desk, all ‘you know, Pete, it’s nice to have more guys like us around here.’”

“What the fuck did you think he was talking about?”

Pete leans back heavily against a rack of mops and says, just above a mumble, “...Children of divorce.”

“Jesus Christ,” Teddy says, shaking his head. “You know, for being the smartest person I know, you can be an amazingly huge dumbass.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Pete says, and he seems a little sad and put off, and he’s like a kicked puppy when he gets like that, which is part of the reason Teddy’s never been able to stay mad at him for anything. “Look, dude, if you want to leave, I totally understand.”

Teddy probably should leave. He should probably go home and order a pizza and play xbox and never bring this up again, like the Thanksgiving Incident, and they can move past and Teddy can pretend like he doesn’t know Pete’s been fake-boning him for almost six months now. 

But home doesn’t have free bourbon. And also, there’s Pete’s face.

“Why would I leave?” he says instead. Resolutely. “How’re you going to explain to your boss why your man left in the middle of the party?”

Pete’s eyebrows lift. “My man?”

And just like that, Teddy makes an executive decision. He reaches down and, very surely, clasps Pete’s hand in his own. “Your man,” he confirms.

“Dude.” Relief floods over Pete’s face, which is pretty cool, because he feels like he spends a lot of time post-college disappointing him. Or, not disappointing him, maybe, but not exactly living up to his fullest potential. Pete’s always had really high expectations for him. It’s kind of nice. “You are the best bro ever.” Pete pauses and looks down at their intertwined fingers. “But, like, we’re still in the hallway, so—”

“Shh.” Teddy puts a pointer finger against Pete’s lips to shut him up, because this is a _moment._ And he’s totally ruining it. 

They gravitate back towards the party, still holding hands, and Teddy’s pretty sure they’re getting a few sidelong looks, but if the head honcho’s gay it’s not like anyone’s going to say anything about it. And besides, no one looks surprised, so they must all know about Pete. Or, at least, think they know about Pete. So there’s no angry mobs, just a bunch of old white guys looking uncomfortable and awkward and republican. They can deal with that.

They go back to the bar and order another round of drinks, and they can finally stop holding hands, and Pete actually does stuff a few dollar bills into the tip jar, that sucker. Teddy also helps himself to at least seven different kinds of appetizers, while Pete gives a rundown of all of the people in the room.

“That’s Kevin Masters, he’s cheating on his wife and everyone knows it, which is crazy, because his wife’s hot as shit. And he’s talking to John Garningham, who always goes on vacations and shows everyone in the office a million pictures after, except, his thumb’s in front of the camera for like eighty percent of them, he’s seriously the world’s worst photographer...”

They stay close to the bar, but a few people come over to chat Pete up, and each time he introduces Teddy kind of awkwardly, and each time he can feel their gaze lingering on his face a split second longer than normal. Which he’s used to, being an above-average physical specimen, but these dudes definitely aren’t hitting on him. Maybe they’re wondering how Pete landed someone so hot. Or, shit, what if they’re wondering how Teddy landed someone so smart? He stands up a little straighter after that and tries to use big words, until Pete looks at him funny, anyway, and then he goes back to not really giving a shit. 

By the time the jazz music cuts out and the dance music starts up, Teddy’s on his fifth or sixth drink. He can’t remember which.

“We can probably sneak out of here in a few minutes,” Pete tells him. “I don’t think anyone will notice.” 

“Nah, man. It’s all gravy. I’m having a good time.”

And, weirdly enough, he is. Apparently parties don’t have to have naked girls and kamikazes to be fun. Apparently just him and Pete and making fun of dudes who look like Orville Redenbacher is good enough for him. 

He and Pete. Pete and he. Pete and him. Whatever.

About half an hour after that, noticeably more red-faced and five times louder, Pete’s boss spots them from across the room. “Boys!” he calls, waving them over. “Come here!”

“Oh god,” Pete moans, but Teddy’s prepared for this. He’s pretty sure Mr. Roberts deserves the best performance of all. He’s the one who signs off on Pete’s paychecks, anyway, and Pete’s paychecks are the reason they even have an xbox in the living room. Teddy slips his hand back into Pete’s and gives it a little squeeze. 

“Your boss is waiting, darling,” Teddy says, and Pete looks like he kind of wants to die.

They cross the room together. Roberts has a small group of people congregated around him this time, and Teddy can’t help but think they all have these little mischievous smirks. Like they know something he doesn’t. He’s getting some serious creeper vibes.

“How’s it going, Mr. Roberts?” Pete says, overly formal now, and his palm feels wet and clammy. Teddy wonders if he sweats every time he talks to the dude. He probably has to dry his pit stains with the bathroom hand dryer every day. 

But Roberts keeps beckoning them forward, like he couldn’t hear him from that far away, even though _that far away_ is more like three feet out. “Closer, closer!” he insists, and Teddy and Pete look at each other. Even though moving closer would mean they’d be right up in Roberts’ personal space, breathing in his martini-breath, they step forward in unison. Half a foot, and then another, and then Roberts throws his hands up to halt them and his face lights up. “Here we are,” he announces, to the whole group, mostly, but still looking at them, his voice cheery and bright. “Our first mistletoe victims!”

Teddy looks up.

Shit.

Sure enough there’s a sprig of mistletoe dangling above them, and this is a Christmas party, so Teddy really should’ve been on the lookout for that. But he wasn’t. And now they’re standing there, hand-in-hand, with a bunch of pervy onlookers all waiting for them to kiss.

“Oh, I don’t think—” Pete says, but Roberts is waving away his excuse before he can even come up with one.

“Rules are rules,” he says, very seriously. “Besides, you’re the youngest couple here, it’s only right that you inaugurate the mistletoe festivities, remind the old married fogeys of what they’re missing out on.”

Teddy wonders if he’s including himself in that. He doesn’t know if he’s married, but he’s most definitely an old fogey. An old fogey who’s had a few too many drinks. 

Slowly, Pete turns his head to look at Teddy.

No, he thinks. No way. No fucking way.

The hand-holding was one thing, whatever, he’d held Pete’s hand before, like when they went to the campus baptist center for free food and the fundies had made them join hands to pray. Probably because that was the most physical action any of them were getting. And then there was the time the whole frat had linked hands to stop Dean Gladstone from tearing down a historic tree they used to pee on for good luck, except as it turned out, she wasn’t trying to tear it down, just string it with Christmas lights for the season, so that one had been a bust.

But kissing Pete—that’s crossing the line. There is no coming back from that. 

Pete makes a face. _The_ face.

Goddamn it.

He can’t really see a way out of this, anyway. What’s he going to do, fake mono? Throw up all over Pete’s shoes? Admit the whole thing was an accidental ruse and get Pete fired from the best job he’ll probably ever have? No. He draws in a steely breath and turns to face him the rest of the way. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and by that he means _you owe me the biggest fucking gift of all time you’ll be paying me back for this for years to come you bastard_ and he grabs Pete by the tie and kisses him.

Pete’s lips are surprisingly soft for a dude’s and he seems surprised by it, which Teddy’s always liked. The surprise. And the soft lips. Both. There’s a flash somewhere off to his left, so someone definitely just took a picture, but he can’t really bring himself to care. What’s weird is… it’s not the worst kiss he’s ever had. It’s not even in the top ten.

Maybe a second too late, he pulls away. Pete’s tie slides slowly out of his grip. 

Pete blinks at him, and he might’ve said something if Roberts hadn’t stepped between them, slinging both arms around their shoulders. “You keep me young, boys,” he says, tossles Teddy’s hair with his hand—he fucking hates when old people do that—and then their little crowd disperses, leaving Teddy and Pete, alone, beneath the mistletoe.

“Uh,” Pete says, finally.

Teddy shakes his head. “I need another drink.”

He doesn’t even have to go to the bar to get it, as it turns out, because a second later the surly bartender approaches them with two brimming glasses in hand. “You have admirers,” he says boredly, pushing a drink at each of them. “Despite the fact that these drinks are _already_ free they insisted I send them over, so, here you are. Enjoy.”

Teddy doesn’t even bother to look around to see who’d ordered them. He just tips his glass back and chugs until it’s empty. He’d suck the liquor off the ice cubes, too, if he wasn’t trying to keep at least an element of class.

“So that was weird,” Pete says after a minute, swirling around the liquid in his glass but not actually drinking it. “Right? I mean, that was pretty weird.”

“Nah,” Teddy says, trying to play it cool. “It wasn’t that weird. No big deal, bro. Broseph. Broski.”

He’d never kissed a guy before but who cares, right? It was just Pete. His best friend Pete. His roommate Pete. Pete, who was a surprisingly good kisser—

“Really? Cause you look pretty freakin’ weirded out.”

“No way, man. Just. Uh.” He glances up, realizes they’re still standing under that stupid-ass plant. Was there a statute of limitations on those things? If they stood here long enough would the whole kiss requirement refresh and start over? His curiosity kind of wants to stick around to see, but—no. The whiskey is clearly catching up to him. He really needs to walk. “Hey, dude, why don’t you show me your office?”

“Uh, sure,” Pete says, because he is game for everything, always. “Yeah. It’s this way.”

They slip out into the hallway unseen and then into the staircase, mostly silent, except for their footsteps. Teddy has never been a light treader. 

“There’s the kitchenette,” Pete comments as they pass a cracked door. “It gets pretty gross, the dudes here act like they’ve never seen a sponge before. So, basically, it’s just like living with you.”

Teddy laughs—it feels good to do that, to still remember how—and throws a punch at his shoulder. “I’ve used a sponge, asswipe,” he says defensively, or, as defensive as he can sound without actually caring. “I clean all the time.”

“Where do we keep the Clorox?”

Teddy says nothing.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” 

They turn into a large room—glass windows all around, and it’s dark outside, but Teddy’s pretty sure they have a fucking incredible view of the city during the day—and Pete walks him to the back, where a large desk is tucked against the wall. There’s a calendar pinned up, dates written in perfect handwriting. Everything is neat and orderly, every notepad in its place. Of course. “Here we go,” Pete says, unfolds his hands. “It’s not much, but, you know. It’s mine.” 

“Yeah, no, this is really fucking cool, dude,” Teddy says, and means it. Sometimes, when Pete leaves for work in the morning and he’s hanging off the couch and nursing a hangover, he imagines Pete’s just playing dress up. Like he goes into an office and fetches coffee for important people and talks sports by the microwave for eight hours before he comes home. But this. This is the real deal. Pete is the real fucking deal.

Teddy drops into Pete’s stuffed chair and kicks his feet up on the desk, and he’s pretty sure he sees Pete wince, but whatever. He pulls open a few drawers, clicks around his desktop looking for porn (there isn’t any), and is reaching for a rubberband ball when he sees it. A picture. _The_ picture.

“Holy shit, you weren’t kidding,” he says, snagging the frame off the desk. He pauses and stares at it; he’s never even seen this one before. He’s pretty sure it was taken after the Beer Olympics—seconds after Delta Psi won the whole thing, maybe. Neither of them are wearing shirts. It was right after the Puerto Vallarta trip, so they both have killer tans. Pete’s got his arm thrown around Teddy’s shoulders, like, tighter than two frat bros probably should, but looking at it now, he doesn’t think that’s what made Mr. Roberts think they were a couple.

It’s his expression.

He is looking at Pete like—

“Jesus Christ,” Teddy breathes, glances up at Pete. 

“It’s just a picture, man,” Pete says, and he’s almost turning red. Like he regrets bringing him up here, like he wishes they would’ve stopped in the kitchenette and called it a day. “Assjuice sent it to me a few weeks after graduation, I don’t know, it’s just a good picture of us both.”

“So… you wanted people to think we’re dating,” Teddy says calmly, placing the picture back on the shelf. He’s not trying to be an asshole about it, not trying to get all accusatory, but the proof is in the pudding. And the pudding is a picture where Teddy looks _head-over-fucking-heels_ in love with Pete.

“What? Fuck you, no I didn’t. That’s—that doesn’t even make sense.”

Teddy shakes his head. “You were totally hoping people would see this and think I was your hot piece of ass at home.”

“You’re crazy, man, I don’t—”

“Pete.”

“Seriously, dude—”

Teddy cuts him off with a kiss.

There’s no mistletoe, no overeager boss orchestrating this moment, just a sudden and consuming want that might’ve been there longer than he ever actually realized. Because Pete has soft lips. Because he wakes him up for work with a hot mug of coffee on the weekends. Because he’s never complained about living with him, even if he doesn’t know where they keep the Clorox. Because of what happened at Thanksgiving, when maybe Teddy wasn’t as drunk as he’d pretended to be.

Pete doesn’t kiss him back, at first. But then he does.

Teddy curls Pete’s tie around his fist and leans back into his desk, knocks some office supplies out of order, topples over an entire jar of pencils. He thinks it’s pretty telling that Pete doesn’t immediately stop to fix it, that he’s an active participant in this kiss, that maybe he wants this just as much as Teddy does, even if he won’t admit it. 

And that’s not even the liquor talking. Shit.

Pete makes this little groaning noise against Teddy’s mouth that’s surprisingly hot, and then he’s pulling Pete closer, and he crowds into the space between Teddy’s legs, braces one hand on the desk behind them and lets the other drag slowly down Teddy’s side. There is definitely a paperweight digging into his ass, but he doesn’t even care.

“Dude,” Teddy says when he pulls away for breath, and Pete’s lips are ghosting along his jaw. “Did you plan on this? You get me drunk and seduce me? Was the mistletoe your idea?”

Teddy can practically feel Pete’s back stiffen beneath his fingers. He wants to map out the curve of his spine. “I swear to god, Teddy, no—” he protests, and he looks stricken enough that Teddy has to laugh.

“I’m kidding, man,” he says, and then he’s pulling him in again, rougher, Pete’s teeth tugging at his bottom lip, kissing the laugh right out of him, and then Teddy’s yanking his shirttail loose enough that he can slide a hand in there, glide along warm skin, and Pete doesn’t manage to suppress a shiver that sends electric currents through his veins. 

“If my boss comes upstairs—” Pete mumbles, but Teddy’s already fumbling with the buttons on his shirt.

“Then he’ll get the show he’s been dying for all night,” Teddy says, carelessly. It’d probably be hotter if he just tore the shirt open, but he knows how Pete is about his clothes. So he does it proper. Kisses Pete until he’s breathless between every other button. 

It’s hanging off his shoulders and Teddy’s hands are exploring, touching parts of Pete he’d never thought he’d touch, and it’s somehow even better than that dream he’d had in college, when he’d been tripping on shrooms and woke up spooned against Pete’s back. 

“I’m either gonna get fired or promoted,” Pete says, but he doesn’t stop, and he locks eyes with Teddy for a second—there’s no question there—before reaching for his zipper. 

He gets his pants open pretty quickly, and messily, too, for a guy who’d forced him to iron them four hours ago, and Teddy’s crazy turned on. He’d always wanted to try office sex, he was just pretty sure he’d have to get an actual office job first. Abercrombie sex wasn’t the same. He’d walked in on teenagers banging in the fitting room not two weeks ago. He’s definitely too old for Abercrombie sex.

But this—Pete gets a hand in his boxers and his breath turns ragged, lets himself sag back onto the desk completely, and Pete kisses him again when he jerks him off, slow and sure, like even if he hadn’t planned this, he’s pretty pleased about its trajectory. And it’s not even weird. It feels way too normal. Like this is the natural order of things.

Like they were going to end up here no matter what.

He’s got his tongue in Pete’s mouth when he feels the familiar unraveling in his stomach, and he pulls back to say, “Pete—” like a warning, but Pete doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, tugs his earlobe between his teeth and says, low and breathy, “Do it, Teddy, c’mon—” and a second later he does, fingernails scraping along Pete’s back, right there against Pete’s desk. Beneath the framed picture of them, young and reckless and stupidly happy, and for a long time, after that moment, Teddy had thought winning the Beer Olympics with his closest group of friends was the best it’d ever get.

He was wrong. He was so, so wrong.

Pete slides his hand out and grins at him, a little unsure, and Teddy kisses him hard enough to knock the uncertainty away.

“I’ve never fooled around with a dude before,” Teddy tells him, grazes his knuckles along Pete’s chest.

Pete nods. “I know, dude, I get it, you don’t have to—”

“No,” Teddy says, and he turns them around. Shoves Pete against the desk. Drops down to his knees. “I was just warning you. In case it’s, you know. Not great.”

Pete rolls his head back towards the ceiling. “It will be,” he says, or, at least, Teddy’s pretty sure he says. But he’s not really listening. He’s preoccupied.

\---

Afterwards, Pete rebuttons his shirt with shaky fingers, and Teddy tries to flatten the wrinkles out of his pants, and god, their hair, but they settle for presentable enough. “You’re gonna think of my ass every time you sit here now,” Teddy says, smirking, like he’s proud of that fact.

Pete shrugs and tugs his shirt back in. “Not the worst mental picture in the world,” he says, and Teddy still, somehow, wants to kiss the everloving shit out of him.

They slip back into the party innocuously, and no one notices, no one pays them attention, until it’s late and Teddy’s ready to go home. To his bed.

Or Pete’s bed.

Depending where they landed first.

Pete pops into the bathroom to take a leak and Teddy’s waiting by the door when Roberts accosts him again, leans against the wall right next to him, smiles at him in the friendly-but-distant-uncle sort of way. “Did you have a good time tonight?” he asks, sincere. He’s a little bit of a male cougar, Teddy's decided, but overall a nice enough guy. 

“I had a great time, yeah, thanks a lot for having us. Pete, uh, really looks up to you.”

Roberts looks pleased by that. “Well, Pete’s a great kid. We love having him here. Before you two leave, though, I wanted to give you something. Someone printed it off a minute ago, thought you’d like to have it.” He hands over a picture, decent quality, and Teddy holds it up for a better look.

It’s them. Kissing. Under the mistletoe.

They do not look like they’re pretending.

“Thanks, Mr. Roberts,” Teddy says, and he stares at the picture for a second too long. It’s fucking weird, to see it in there in photographic evidence, but it’s also pretty hot. If he does say so himself. “I think I’ll give this to Pete, though. It’d look good on his desk, don't you think?”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy yuletide, kissoffools! I loved your prompt and tried to do it justice for these two (incredibly attractive) guys. Hope you enjoyed! xx


End file.
